Monday, April 18, 2011

Una Merkel's Roadside Tribute

This is a roadside marker from Covington, Kentucky. Una Merkel, screen comedienne we might remember as the wisecracking best friend from "42nd Street" (1933), or the wisecracking housekeeper from "The Parent Trap" (1961), or a number of wiseacre roles in between in movies and on TV, was born here.

Nominated for an Oscar for "Summer and Smoke" (1961), she also had a handful of Broadway credits, and won a Tony Award in 1956 for "The Ponder Heart". I have to wonder, though, if this simple sign, as earnestly detailed as possible in what space it allows, is a more glorious tribute than even the Tony. That your hometown would care to remember you long after you'd left it, and hitched it's civic pride to your humble existence in an entertainment industry where you represent little more than a footnote, is something special indeed.

Who says historical markers are just for famous pioneers, generals, and presidents? Get out of the car and take a picture of the family by Una Merkel's roadside marker, and take your hats off a good ol' sassy peroxide blonde.

In 1986, there was a classified ad in the old Hollywood Studio Magazine that read, "Una Merkel Has No Headstone!" and requested contributions to provide one. I sent $5, she got a headstone, and now she has this honor, too. Great news for the actress who played the best friend of just about every leading lady (Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, etc.).

I see the name Una Merkel, I come running - even when I only get a few seconds here and there at work to use the internet...How wonderful that they were that proud of her. And quite right too. She's brilliant and adorable, as the heroine's best friend pre-Code, the shrewish battleaxe in the forties, and everything between and beyond. Lovely!

Bob the Bear - a picture book by my twin brother & Me

Read Arte Acher's Falling Circus

Recent Comments on Past Posts:

It Happened to Jane is special to my family. My mother was selected to play the wife of Aaron Caldwell, the Chester town selectman in the movie and has a speaking part about the parking meter revenues gathered from outside his general store in the town center. My older brother was one of the cub scouts delivering coal donated by town residents to fuel Old 97. We grew up in Deep River. A few years ago a niece provided every member of music family copies of It Happened to Jane on DVD. The Connecticut River valley was truly an idyllic spot for growing up in the mid-Twentieth Century!

Thank you, the Lux Theatre broadcast was absolutely marvelous, and far superior, as you have indicated, the film. I have always admired Dorothy McGuire, and she has it all over Jean Peters. This is not as clear cut a differential between Joseph Cotton and Dan Dailey, but at this point in their grand careers, I will take Dan. Again thank you.

I jus watched this and I have to agree... the ending let me down. She left Howard Keel!!!! I've had a crush on him since seeing Seven Brides when I was 10.I did love the message that Rose Marie can be herself.But I'm still sad. Seriously, Rose Marie, you chose the wrong man.

My wife and I go back two decades for our love of “Remember the Night” and its heartwarming story...P.S. As I type these words I am reminded of the inscription my wife had engraved inside the wedding ring I now wear… “Remember The Night.”

Beautiful piece, Jacqueline, about yet another movie from the Unjustly Forgotten file. I agree a video release is decades overdue, (What is wrong with Universal Home Video? You'd think the only movies they ever made were monsters and Abbott & Costello. And don't even get me started on the pre-'48 Paramounts they're sitting on.) I count myself lucky to have scored a decent 16mm print on eBay some years back; otherwise it would have been a good 40 years since I saw it.

I happened upon this piece and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading it. Really a great appreciation of a wonderful movie. Raoul Walsh is one of my favorite directors and this is the first of his movies I ever remember seeing--it was on the big screen back in 1952 so I guess that dates me but a movie like this was ideal for my age, both for the adventure and romance.

I guess I'm going to be busy reading all your blogs that touch on events I'm familiar with.

Judgement At Nuremberg caught my attention as I had the privilege of working in it for some 60 days. But more so as the German WWII history always recall my own trials during the war.

I suppose we filmed this around 1959-1960 which is not that long after the ending of the war. Reconstruction in Europe was far from accomplished. For the audience in 1961 this history was still a part of everyone's life.

I was overwhelmed sitting in that set and listening to the greatest actors of that generation orate day after day... an endless live theater.